T25 vs. top 10% in T26 - 50

It was suggested to me that if one cannot earn admission to a top 25 law school, the next best thing is to graduate in the top 10% of a school ranked 26 - 50. I am speaking of career prospects in a major urban center here. Does this make sense? Of course, I think this discussion will have to exclude the very elite schools. I'm not going to suggest that the top of the American University class will be viewed by hiring partners the same way as a Yale graduate.

The reason why I discuss this is that I am very seriously considering the University of Florida. I believe that I am a very good candidate for admission and the in-state tuition is ridiculous. I liked the area and the campus when I visited there. Plus, I really do like living in Florida. I do not, however, want to completely eliminate the prospect of employment in the Northeast, or possibly Chicago. I am not being so presumptuous as to guarantee my placement in the top 10% should I be given the opportunity to attend UF, but I am haunted by the thought that I will forever lose my freedom to choose to live elsewhere. Thank you for any feedback you can provide.

Ok. I'm about to ask what many of you will consider a stupid question. What is OCI? Whatever it is, I had a professor tell me (he is also a practicing attorney) something about being one of only a few in OCI from FSU. He said there were also a few from UF and one from Miami. I'm not sure of the time frame in question, but I understood from his tone that this was somewhat impressive. I couldn't continue picking his brain because he was late, Can someone enlighten me?

It was suggested to me that if one cannot earn admission to a top 25 law school, the next best thing is to graduate in the top 10% of a school ranked 26 - 50. I am speaking of career prospects in a major urban center here. Does this make sense? Of course, I think this discussion will have to exclude the very elite schools. I'm not going to suggest that the top of the American University class will be viewed by hiring partners the same way as a Yale graduate.

The reason why I discuss this is that I am very seriously considering the University of Florida. I believe that I am a very good candidate for admission and the in-state tuition is ridiculous. I liked the area and the campus when I visited there. Plus, I really do like living in Florida. I do not, however, want to completely eliminate the prospect of employment in the Northeast, or possibly Chicago. I am not being so presumptuous as to guarantee my placement in the top 10% should I be given the opportunity to attend UF, but I am haunted by the thought that I will forever lose my freedom to choose to live elsewhere. Thank you for any feedback you can provide.

Florida does have very good OCI, and yes, there are NY firms there. The same with American. (My choice ended up between American and UF. I liked American way better, but my family had extensive ties with UF. I ended up choosing American.)

The difference between those two schools and FSU (where I went to undergrad) is lightyears.

Feel free to PM me or email me or something and I'll answer any of your questions you have about those three schools. Also check my 1L blog at http://wikilaw.blogspot.com

As a side note not necessarily related to academic quality, FSU also beats Florida in employment numbers:UF Law (employed nine months after graduation): 87.3%FSU Law (employed nine months after graduation): 95.6%

I guess the easy thing to do would be to answer the question this way: If one cannot earn admission into a top 15 law school, the next best thing is to graduate in the top 10% of a school ranked 16 - 20. That is, if one has a strict ‘exemplary’ firm aspiration. If firm ranking is not of paramount importance you should be able to attain employment in any major urban center by graduating top 10% at a 26-50 ranked school located in or near that major urban center where you wish to be employed.

i'm not sure where people get these "top 10%" of the class figures. i haven't seen any actual data to support this. never mind that the national reach of schools outside of HYSCCN really depends...in other words they are not truly national schools. i've seen some anecdotal evidence of people coming out of schools like WUSTL in the top 30% landing BIGLAW gigs. what about people going into IP, certainly saying that they need to graduate in the to 10% of their class from a school like, UMN, seems a little high. What about ND, a school ranked at the bottom of the top third ? they have pretty impressive placement, especially in the coasts. do you think that a student at WI needs to graduate in the top 10% of his class to land a job at Foley and Lardner in Milwaukee (vault 100, certainly BIGLAW)? if i were the OP i would take this advice with a grain of salt until the poster provides some data to support these "top 10%" claims for schools who are solidly tier one and have a solid regional presence.